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Dan Foster-Smith

Dan Foster-Smith

Designer‑developer & PhD researcher in AI-assisted creative ideation

Newcastle upon Tyne, United Kingdom
sunderlandsoftwarecity+1
London, United Kingdom
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Joined October 2025
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Creative Digital

Summary

A hybrid designer‑developer with long experience building data‑driven decision‑support tools and visualisations: early career work focused on seabed mapping and GIS (Envision Mapping), moving into front‑end and data analytics roles (Gavurin), and maintaining an applied technical skillset (web stack, processing/d3, After Effects, Arduino). co+1
Researcher and scholar in design & creative AI: Dan is/has been affiliated with Newcastle University (Culture Lab) as a PhD researcher / research associate on 'Augmenting Creativity', contributing to HCI and heritage publications and AHRC-related projects investigating how AI can augment creative ideation. google+2
Founder / entrepreneur combining design research and productisation: he founded Persona Design to productise persona generation and conversational persona tooling from research data, and previously co‑founded Yossarian to explore metaphorical/creative search—both projects show a consistent interest in building tools that scaffold creative thinking using NLP and graph‑based approaches. sunderlandsoftwarecity+2
Academic and practice‑led collaborator: publication record and co‑authored works (e.g., Open Library of Humanities, CHI 2019) indicate a practice‑based research approach that blends design practice, cultural heritage, and computational methods. openlibhums+1

Work

Education

Projects

Writing

Design and Plural Heritages: Composing Critical Futures

January 1, 2019

Conference paper (CHI 2019) that explores plural heritage perspectives and design approaches; Foster‑Smith is a co‑author and contributor to HCI/design discussions about cultural data and heritage interpretation.

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Co‑Producing Collections: Re-imagining a Polyvocal Past with Cultural Probes

January 1, 2018

An article (Open Library of Humanities) describing methods for co-producing museum/collection narratives using cultural probes and design methods; Foster‑Smith is a co‑author on this work linking design practice and heritage.

Favicon imageolh.openlibhums.org

Biotope mapping of the Sound of Harris, Scotland (SNH commissioned report)

January 1, 2006

Technical report documenting seabed/biotope mapping work with Envision Mapping; Foster‑Smith is listed among contributors, reflecting earlier applied research in marine mapping and GIS.

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Hobbies

Filmmaking, animation and storytelling (produced explanatory/animated pieces for BBC Explainers and other digital storytelling projects). co

Data visualisation, creative coding and electronic prototyping (Arduino, Raspberry Pi). co